Modern Christianity has fewer rules about sacred texts and images, while many other religions still enforce them strictly. Has this always been the case?

by _DickyBoy

In many religions there seem to be quite strict rules around their sacred texts (e.g. not touching Torah scrolls with bare hands in Judaism, making formal ablutions before touching the Qur'an in Islam, etc.) and images (e.g. not worshipping images of the Gurus in Sikhism, or forbidding images of Muhammad in Islam).

In modern Christianity (here in the West at least) I'm not aware of any such rules. Has it always been this way? Or did Christians once have stricter rules about these kinds of things? And what factors led Christianity to take this more relaxed approach to their texts and iconography, where other religions don't?

Butlejg0

For a long time Christians did very strictly limit their images in worship settings because of Torah forbidding graven images (worshiping idols, Exodus 20:4 & Deuteronomy 5:8). Theologically speaking, images designed to be worshiped are still forbidden for the same reason. However, there were numerous factors at play why we perceive the practices of religious images as "relaxing" over time in Christianity

  1. Theology: The concept of God becoming fully human (Incarnational theology), ie. the central tenant of Christianity, changes what people conceive as worshiping God. If you believe your God became part of creation, suddenly created things aren't perceived as "lesser" or "belittling to God" as they used to be. In the Old Testament, Qu'ran, and even Aristotle's "Unmoved Mover" a perfect, eternal being, such as God would never lower itself to become part of its finite, imperfect creation, thus a "graven image" would be an insult to God, even if it was used to represent God as a teaching/worship aid. The concept of "earthly things" being lesser and "heavenly things" being idealized existed throughout the ancient world and impacted everyone from Plato, to the Israelites, to pre-islamic arabic tribes, Persians, etc. (even China with Confucius, though I imagine that particular train of thought was created independently of the philosophy of ancient Greece and the middle east). However, since Christians believed that God became Incarnate; that is, part of creation as a human being (though simultaneously remaining fully God in heaven) means it's not an insult to God to represent him in images of his Incarnate form. This is part of the thrust of Acts 10:13 where Peter has a vision of God telling him to eat animals that were once forbidden by Torah, through God becoming man in Christ, God has cleansed creation.
  2. Cultural/Political. In the ancient world, religion saturated everyday life. For early Christians in the roman empire, this was problematic because the religion that was dominate was paganism, which they took to be idol worship. However, when Christianity became the dominant religious force in the Roman Empire, life continued to be saturated with religion, only now Christian. Christian missionaries were trained to incorporate some pagan practice from those they hoped to convert for the very human reason of being relatable and making reasonable concessions/compromises, but for a distinct theological reason as well: that the Christian God was able to "cleanse" "redeem" or "overpower" the spiritual forces the pagans believed in. Gargoyles on Churches are a great example of this practice. Originally, placing images of fearsome beasts on buildings was a pagan practice of warding off evil spirits. When the areas were converted, the practice was "Christianized" by stating that gargoyles warded off the Devil, or that gargoyles were lesser imps/demons that the church had brought under the power of God to defend the building (also good gutter architecture). Many pagan practices were "Christianized" as time went on and various places/peoples were converted. (The Easter bunny is another great example). Islam resisted this because like the early Christians, they existed in a world saturated by religious images, Christian images, and the concept that God could be contained into a human is not part of their theology, so they stuck with the more strict rule about images. Leaving images to "idol-worshiping Christians"
  3. Teaching/worship tools: This is the subject of the Seventh Ecumenical Council that took place in Nicaea in 787AD (the last ecumenical council that all the major branches of Christianity acknowledge). The main subject of the council was the use of Icons in Church. The Iconoclasts were the party that viewed the use of Icons were Idolatrous, and took the place of God. However, the council decided that Icons and religious images were permitted in Churches and private worship for several reasons. 1. When venerating an icon, image of a saint, cross, or other religious symbol, one is not technically worshiping the object but what it represents: God (theory and practice are of course two different things, but this is how it was justified). 2. Icons are "written" (drawn) in such a stylistic way so as to make the believer perfectly aware that they are not the thing they represent (heads are made larger on important people to show their importance, baby Jesus is always depicted as a tiny buff man in order to show that he is both fully human as a baby, but also the immortal, eternal word of God, etc.) 3. In a time with poor literacy, images are too invaluable as a teaching tool to be discarded.

Sorry I couldn't speak more for the other religions, they are not as much my expertise, and if I have misrepresented I hope someone can comment below correcting any error I have made. In summary, Christianity didn't necessarily "lax" its position about Idol worship, but because of the theology of Incarnation, it was more willing to accept images of God if they were used in the "proper" way.